Our mission

A Native American way of wellness

Native American Natural Foods, LLC, is focused on creating a family of nationally branded buffalo-based food products that are delicious and that promote a Native American way of wellness that feeds mind, body, and spirit.

Beginning with its first product line, which features Tanka Bar, Tanka Bites, Tanka Dogs and Tanka Sticks, Native American Natural Foods provides a category of natural healthy choices in the marketplace that currently does not exist.

Adding value

By adding value to traditional Native food products, using modern scientific methods and the least amount of processing possible, Native American Natural Foods innovates value-added products for the U.S. consumer marketplace.

Founded in 2006 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, owners Karlene Hunter and Mark Tilsen imagine a world filled with healthy foods that add to the restoration and preservation of our lands and ecosystem -- a world without the pain of starvation or obesity. The world they imagine embraces the lifestyle that Native American people lived just over a century ago.

Heart, mind, body and spirit

"Tanka" is used in reference to delivering your best with all your heart, mind, body and spirit. It is the choices that you make and the actions that you take to be who you are. Whether you're Native, white, black, yellow or brown, it is your ability to overcome, to extend a helping hand for those in need, to defeat racism, to protect our Mother Earth, and to love all others on our planet.

It is your ability Live Life Powerfully and to acknowledge "Mitakuye Oyasin" -- we are all related.